Those of you who are familiar with the literature of the Bible will recognize the title of this essay as a corruption of a verse from Proverbs. Specifically the verse comes from Chapter 16, Verse 18. That verse in its unexpurgated form holds that pride goes before a fall. Because this essay is being dictated on April 21, 2011, I have elected to use the Biblical form of speech for its title. Before I am finished, I hope to leave you with a thought or two about falling.
This essay is being dictated on Thursday, April 21 which is, according to the Christian calendar, the date of Maundy Thursday. Words have meanings and in trying to determine what Maundy Thursday might mean, I did a bit of investigation. As it turns out, Maundy Thursday might have something to do with the Eucharist. Or, if that is unsatisfactory, it may have to do with the washing of feet as performed by Jesus as it has been recorded in the Bible.
There are other explanations of what Maundy means but I believe that those two are colorful enough to satisfy my curiosity and those of my readers.
The fact that this essay is being written has to do with an incident during March of this year which involved a fall. I will contend here that pride had nothing to do with that swan dive or a duck dive in my own kitchen. I have no intention of contradicting the Bible but in this case I believe that pride had nothing do with the events that I will attempt to revisit for you in this essay.
On March 30, Miss Chicka was using the oven to broil a piece of fish. The oven in this house puts out a superior blend of heat so that before long the room was filled with warmth. As a matter of fact, it was so filled with warmth that it set off the smoke detector located in the hall outside the kitchen. There was no smoke at all. It all had to do with warmth.
At the very instant when the smoke detector made its shrill sound, I was entering the kitchen in search of my chair. The smoke detector demands that action be taken immediately. Nonetheless I began to search for my chair in anticipation of eating a sumptuous lunch. However, in the confusion caused by the smoke detector, my feet became entangled in the lower rungs of the chair and as a result I took a duck dive onto the floor and hit my head on Miss Chicka’s refrigerator. I am told that I was unconscious for perhaps as much as 5 or 7 seconds. The rescue squad in this town is always on high alert and in a matter of moments cops and the rescue squad appeared in my kitchen. I awoke from my period of somnolence promptly and, when asked by one of the rescue workers about going to the hospital, I laughed it off. In point of fact, laughing it off is not necessarily a bright maneuver.
On the evening of the incident and on the following day, my temperature exceeded 100º. On Friday, April 1st, I became concerned about the high temperatures. On that occasion, I sought help from the Urgent Care Center run by the Summit Medical Group in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. I reported that during this encounter with duck diving, I had hit my head on Miss Chicka’s refrigerator. Immediately a CAT scan was ordered and it disclosed that I had fluid accumulating around the brain area. The physician who treated me in the Urgent Care Center is a bright fellow and he told me in no uncertain terms that I was headed for the hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
And so it was on Friday evening, April 1st, I headed for Overlook Hospital in an ambulance. Things don’t always go as planned. I had thought that I would go to the Urgent Care Center to see about my high temperatures and in fact, wound up in an ambulance headed toward Overlook Hospital.
Apparently brain injuries are treated with the utmost care. That was certainly true in my case. The fluid on the brain stabilized and I was released on the following Monday. On Tuesday of the succeeding week, the neurosurgeon told me that after another CAT scan there was no evidence of fluid on the brain.
But I am here to tell you that this injury provided a great opportunity for the medical profession to exhibit its wares. After leaving the hospital, in the space of a few days I kept appointments with at least nine specialists who offered opinions about whether there was anything wrong and commented on the contents of my head. So it is that from start to finish, and I am still not finished with the medical appointments. I lost three weeks or more of exercise. I dislike losing the exercise but it was made fairly clear to me that exercise would not be in the best interest of my little brain.
As I said earlier in this essay, I have no intention of disputing the contents of the Old Testament of the Bible which has endured for perhaps 3,000 years. But in this instance, I must assume that it had nothing to do with my duck dive in the kitchen. It had to do with my feet becoming entangled in the lower reaches of my chair. There is no correlation between excessive pride and getting your feet entangled. Perhaps when the Bible was written, the chairs or stools would not entangle one’s feet. I am not an expert on stools or chairs of ancient times, nor am I an expert on Maundy Thursday.
So you see, this essay is my contribution to the celebration of Holy Week according to the Christian and Jewish calendars. My Jewish friends celebrated Passover this week and now the Christians will celebrate Easter. The only two left out in the cold are the Muslims and the non-believers. But I take no offense whatsoever.
So this essay is to let my readers know that I am back in business and that in fact, fluid on the brain in my case demonstrates that I still have one. I can only say that such an arrangement seems equitable and fair to me. But I would dispute the Bible injunction that pride goeth before a falleth. In fact, pride goeth before keeping your mind on what needs to be done to find your chair and to become seated. Perhaps that verse in the Bible should read, “Pride goeth before sitting down.” I will try to find an influential clergyman to try my new thought on him. I suspect that the clergyman may tell me to leave things as they are: that, simply put, pride goeth before a falleth.
E. E. CARR
April 21, 2011
Essay 545
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Kevin’s commentary:
So the thing about Pop is that the man is invincible. As of the time of posting this he’s just recently gotten over a double case of the flu and pneumonia at ninety. Similarly, my grandmother on my father’s side has also cleared the 90-year mark and is chugging along quite well. I take this either to mean that hitting the big 90 mark should be no problem for me, or that such luck is not sustainable and I should anticipate shuffling off the coil in around forty to fifty years.
I’ll give the fridge in the kitchen a very stern look next time I see it for positioning itself so inconveniently.